During manufacture of TFT-LCDs, the occurrence of poorness in display is inevitable. The poorness in liquid crystal display is mainly classified into two categories: a non-electric poorness and an electric poorness. The reason for occurrence of the non-electric poorness is more, and has a relationship with the material and process. Specifically, materials leading to non-electric poorness include liquid crystals, a metal electrode layer (a gate electrode, a source electrode and a drain electrode), an insulating layer, an alignment layer, a sealant and so on. In the event that defects occur in any step in a process for manufacturing the above material layers, a non-electric poorness, such as, a horizontal black line, a white line, a black point, or the like, can be produced. The main reasons for occurrence of an electric poorness are array-process defects, such as, bright lines, bright points, open-circuit of signal lines, and so on.
In order to detect poorness of products quickly and accurately for reflecting the production circumstances, a detection station for a liquid crystal cell is set in a production line of a liquid crystal cell process. An existing detection of liquid crystal cell engineering is placed after a Cell cutting process, and a probe unit in a Cell detection equipment is used for probe test on lead wires (e.g. short-circuit bars) for signal lines (gate lines, data lines, or the like) at a dummy zone (being the portion that has to be discarded upon cutting, namely, a blank space useless for a subsequent module on the panel) of a liquid crystal cell. The probe test includes a turn-on test and a color test on data lines and gate lines of the liquid crystal cell, and it is only aimed at a single liquid crystal cell. A display signal is input to each signal input port of the liquid crystal cell by using a probe unit, so as to detect poorness. However, detection may not be implemented before the liquid crystal cell is cut, such as for a dummy zone denoted by a dashed-line box in FIG. 1, and this is because the probe detection may not be performed on a dummy zone of each liquid crystal cell 1 to be cut by the probe unit in the Cell detection equipment before cutting, namely, the probe cannot touch lead wires for signal lines.
In an existing detection of liquid crystal cell, it is required that only after cell-assembling of a color filter (CF) substrate and a TFT substrate has been finished and a single liquid crystal cell has been formed by cutting a liquid crystal substrate, the detection can be performed. As such, feedback of poorness information is delayed, resulting in a subsequent waste of production cost. Furthermore, the investment cost of a contact-type lighting equipment used for a conventional after-cut detection is extremely high.